Dr. W. Bernard Carlson is a professor in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia, where he directs the Engineering Business Program. He earned his A.B. from College of the Holy Cross and his M.A. and Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He then studied business history as the Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Business School. Professor Carlson has received numerous awards, including the Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology for his seven-volume work, Technology in World History. He is the author of Innovation as a Social Process: Elihu Thomson and the Rise of General Electric, 1870-1900 and, most recently, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age. Professor Carlson serves on the board of directors of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and as the executive secretary for the Society for the History of Technology.